In dental, medical or other professions, handpiece instruments, such as dental drills, evacuators, surgical instruments, etc., are often utilized by the dentist, physician or other person performing treatment on a patient. These handpiece instruments are operated through elongate, flexible, operating hose which are attached at one end to the instrument and lead from a source of air, water, electrical energy, etc. which are utilized in operating the handpiece instruments.
These handpiece instruments are often positioned in a console apparatus which may be placed beside-the-patient, over-the-patient, or other desired convenient positions for use by the person performing the treatment. The instruments and attached operating hose are pulled from retracted positions in the console apparatus when use thereof is not desired to extended positions out of the console apparatus when use thereof is desired. The usual arrangement of the flexible operating hose within the instrument console is in a vertically and downwardly extending loop which may be shortened upon the pulling of the instrument and its operating hose from the retracted position to the extended positions for use thereof. Such an arrangement is illustrated in prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,171, assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
The above-described arrangement is not conducive to providing thin and compact instrument console constructions which may be utilized in over-the-patient positions for convenient access to the user of the instruments for the treatment of a patient positioned in a treatment chair.
Arrangements have been suggested in other mechanisms for positioning of the flexible operating hose connected to handpiece instruments of this type, other than the placing of such operating hose in a downwardly and vertically extending loop, and such mechanisms have suggested or provided devices for holding, extending and retracting the operating flexible hose attached to such instruments. However, these other arrangements and their extending and retracting mechanisms have been overly complicated in their construction and use, have failed to provide a thin and compact construction for an over-the-patient instrument console, and have failed to provide satisfactory holding, extending and retracting mechanisms for the flexible hose which provide easy operation by the user, etc.